Intel Missed The Chance Of Partnering With Apple For Original iPhone

When Apple was working on its original iPhone, the company approached Intel and wanted to use one of Intel’s chips inside the phone. Intel, riding on the high horse back in 2007, decline to invest in a device that seemed to have no future. And thus, the company missed a huge opportunity.

While Apple was still working on the original iPhone, many had claimed that the chances of a new smartphone succeeding in the market were next to nothing. Naturally, not many companies wanted to partner with Apple on this product.

According to Intel’s outgoing CEO, Paul Otellini, “We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we’d done it. The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do… At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.”

Intel may have decided to partner with Apple, had the company foreseen the sales of millions of iPhone. But at the time of original iPhone’s launch, no one could have imagined that the smartphone will go on to become the most-sold mobile device.

Since 2007, rumors have surfaced times and again, citing that Apple and Intel may finally be partnering on a project. But so far, none of that has proven true.